Tobacco Road Sports Cafe & Brewery — Restaurant in Raleigh

I do not recommend this place. I don't write bad reviews but they have to know it's not ok. We're Active duty military station in Hawaii and I planned a graduation/7 year old celebration for my family when we come home on a 14 hour flight months ago. I dealt with Katie, Tami, and Amy, via mostly by phone& some via emails which advised me that I had to have at least 15 ppl to reserve a private room to start planning. Katie and Tami advised me to call 48- 72 hours to confirm the actual head count. 3 days before the event I called and confirm for 19 adult and 13 kids! I paid my deposit of $150 plus a dessert fee where they would plate our cake and have all drinks and salad out with in 15- 30mins after the start of the party. They ( a lady “Tami or Amy”)told me they would update the final count as. 32 ppl as of Wed,. I also let them know that my sister will be there early to decorate and start the event due to we had graduation. Enjoyable everything was confirmed. Saturday, On the event day, my sister called me and stated that they were not ready and only had 15 people down. I called immediately ask for the ladies that has been helping me. No one was there that I’ve planned with but I spoke with a Veronica. She stated she didn’t know anything and no one updated her. She stated she will get the room prepared the right way. I got there and none of my guest has orders and half had there drink. I talk to Veronica to see what I can do to help. They said there getting on it. Being that we had children that been waiting for over an hour plus…they finally took the orders 2 hours in and out of the 32 that rsvped 28 showed up. I was still hopefully because we haven’t seen our family in years. I just wanted everyone to eat and have a good experience. Then my sister notice that the waitress was crying. I pulled her to the side and asked what’s going on she said that it looks like we’re not having a good time and she wants us to have a good time but her management won’t give here any help. I then hugged her and told her I’ll help her. I gave a started tip of $50 and I started serving drinks, salad,and fries out. She said the GM was coming and he’s going to fix it. I was relieved. Until the GM came upstairs very hostile, yelling at me without any introduction stating “I lied about the head count and I made the waitress cry, threaten her, and he’s calling the police. “ I asked him to clam down here & I tried to talk to the waitress and staff there, but the GM was stuck on disrespect. Now after my research,And consulting the Raleigh police department and my attorney, I now know his name is ( Alex ), and it's his own family business. His poor management skills cause unnecessarily terrible experiences for my guest and I. When we reached out to them, they wanted to focus on the emails opposed to how they handled the miscommunication and the disrespect. I never spoke with a man and only the ladies that ensured me that their restaurant was the best place for my event and they would take care of us, understanding our story. Yet a man came over 2 hours after the event time to yell, disrespect, and threaten us with the police as if we committed a crime. Honestly; I'm still shocked on how I paid, patronized a company, received poor service, didn't eat, and was disrespected. I feel that if Katie, Tami or Amy was there the experience would've been better. If I had to do it all over again; I wouldve called the police on him as soon as he attacked me and I asked him to calm down. This poor management /customer service experience has caused much pain and confusion. I don't know if I was just caught in the crossfire from something else or Discriminated against. Just doesn't seem right. All I wanted was to celebrate my family's Graduation/kid's birthday / and see some family I hadn't seen in years. This isn't right! I pray that this doesn't have to happen to anyone else. The company hasn't reached out to understand or...

So terrible that I will never return or ever recommend this venue again. I booked this venue a year ago for my moms surprise 50th party last Saturday (March 30th 2019) While we were excited about the venue and our original party planner Katie .... we are beyond disappointed and insulted with the way everything turned out with them. We know things happen so when we; Understand it being difficult to get ahold of anyone days before the event and not getting anyone to respond to messages Understand if staff forgets to bring out the appetizers we ordered for guests BEFORE the birthday girl arrived and completely forgotten until we reminded them Understand that staff members have a bad day and may not be all smiles.... But things we will not accept; THE OWER ALEX PUTTING HIS HAND ON MY MOM: side note: She was just surprised with over 100 guests for her birthday... she was in tears and saw a waiter walking by with food so she picked an onion ring off the plate because she thought it was the food for the party (and yes she was being funny).... however, she had not idea it wasn't ours and the owner had the audacity to come up to her and spank her arm as if correcting a child! My mom was shocked and thought it was a joke - she waited for someone to say it was a prank! Later she found out it was an owner and confronted him telling him she was sorry because she had no idea it wasn't her food and would appreciate him not talking to her as a child nor touching her.... the man literally got defensive and tried to say "Ok yes I spanked your arm you'll be fine!" I WAS LIVID. I followed him as he walked away and he would not let me speak.... I realized that I was getting nowhere with this crazy individual and decided to walk away so I can enjoy this party (that I could unfortunately not just take somewhere else last minute) They closed the kitchen because they couldn't keep up with the food order.... our party was unable to order food after only a couple hours into the party A server literally took a plate from a guest of ours while she was eating the meal because it was not her order.... My aunts went to the bar for something and the female bartender asked one of them 'cash or card?'... the other aunt responded 'cash'.... the bartender looked and her and said "I'm talking to HER" and pointed at the other... Overall THIS WAS TERRIBLE SERVICE. What do you do, complain to the owner?????? NEVER AGAIN! such a shame for such a nice looking place. Once we reached our minimum required at the bar.... we closed out, took down decor and moved the party to another spot.. CANNOT SAY ENOUGH HOW DISGUSTED I AM WITH THIS SERVICE..... The only employees id like to thank are Patrick, Joe, Fernando and the MOD that...

I feel horrible writing this review as I’ve always loved Tobacco Road, but this past experience was so poor that I felt compelled to write a review.

I want to start by saying that past experiences at the bar were great and our server had a wonderful and patient personality. Seriously, he was awesome and doing the best he could under a new technology system and very clearly, a broken down management issue. Also they treat dog friends here wonderfully!

But so, so much went wrong. The constant onslaught of 20 flies at our table, asking 3 different people for silverware 3 times (even after we got our food), drinks coming one drink at a time, appetizer coming with dessert, the menus and old drink cups continuing to pile up on our bistro set table for 4 people, the several pieces of cork in the wine, multiple requests for items such as napkins and extra plates from multiple staff was bad enough. We wanted to ask for some salt and pepper but we knew it would be a lost cause. Our server was able to acknowledge the weaknesses in our experience, but everyone else seemed genuinely clueless. There were TWO tables outside on a Friday night; we were one of them. Yet, we still had to wait 30 minutes between drink orders.

It’s literally impossible to get drunk at this bar because you get one drink an hour. I had to start ordering doubles. Their was one employee who his sole job was to open the door between the restaurant and patio. We wanted to turn this into a drinking game, but couldn’t because we didn’t have any drinks. We also tried to leave to go somewhere else but we’re waiting on a round of drinks we ordered 20 minutes prior.

Tobacco Road, what has happened? Are you okay? Do you need some cash flow for some bug repellant? Maybe some staff training? Y’all used to be my favorite place to watch games. We literally had to start putting our empty plates and cups on an empty table so someone would take them away. Disappointed and hoping this isn’t the future for Tobacco Road.

P.S. As I was about to send this review, I saw the one other table go inside to retriever their...